For his next effort, Affleck upped the ante considerably by co-starring and directing the well-received 2010 crime thriller The Town, which had its premiere at the Toronto festival and went on to earn Jeremy Renner a supporting actor Academy Award nomination.

The 40-year-old Affleck happily returns to the 2012 edition of the festival with Argo, which gets its world premiere Sept. 7 and opens in theatres Oct. 12.

Time will tell if his latest production will receive Oscar love, but most pundits agree the movie seems to be headed there.

Directed by and starring Affleck, Argo chronicles the events surrounding the 1979 Iranian hostage-taking dilemma in which six American Embassy employees managed to hide out at the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber), then sneak out of the country as 52 of their colleagues were being held at the U.S. embassy.

As history tells us, the 52 were eventually released after 444 days, but the story behind the six escapees wasn’t revealed until the information became declassified in 1997.

That’s the crux of Affleck’s movie yarn, which is part thriller, part fiction-based-on-fact ticking-clock drama and part self-aware comedy skewering, yes, Hollywood. How so?

Affleck portrays real-life CIA operative Tony Mendez, who formulated the plan to rescue the six Americans by pretending they were part of a Canadian sci-fi movie crew scouting locations in Iran. The name of the movie: Argo.

Besides the tense rescue mission, the film details, with insider wit, how Mendez set up a pretend Hollywood production company to give credence to his deception.

Indeed, it’s a different thematic world than his crime stories Gone Baby Gone and The Town. In fact, the only thing the latest Affleck film has in common with his previous projects is a superb cast.

Alan Arkin plays old-school Hollywood producer Lester Siegel, who delivers many of the caustic lines in the process of setting up the fake Argo production. John Goodman is movie makeup man John Chambers, who was, indeed a bona fide CIA freelancer, and Mendez’s guide into the film industry.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston manages some scene-stealing of his own as Mendez’s immediate CIA boss, who seems to be as cynical as he is intelligent.

In fact, Cranston juggled a few things just so he could do Argo because he was so impressed with Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone and The Town.

As it turns out, Cranston wasn’t disappointed. In the end, he was impressed with the film results and Affleck’s effortless ability to work efficiently on both sides of the camera.

“I really think he’s going to be the next Clint Eastwood,” says Cranston, who has directed and starred in lots of Breaking Bad episodes. “He was always in total control of what was going on, and that really was something to observe.”

It’s anything but a secret formula. Affleck learned on The Town that the double duty can be taxing if you haven’t laid out precise procedures for each day. “Always be prepared,” says Affleck.

Coincidence or not, he had just wrapped The Town when he happened upon Chris Terrio’s screenplay for Argo, which is based on the Mendez memoir The Master of Disguise and a Wired magazine piece.

The actor-director was hooked immediately, and soon cut a deal with partners George Clooney and Grant Heslov, who held the movie rights.

After casting fell into place, problematic locations were resolved, as well. For the chaotic Tehran sequences, Affleck filmed exteriors in and around Istanbul, including pivotal moments when the Islamic student revolutionaries storm the U.S. Embassy.

His movie star status came in handy, too. Thanks to his Jack Ryan role in 2002′s The Sum of All Fears, he had a relationship with CIA officials, and managed to parlay that into very rare permission to film scenes at the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters.

All things considered, the movie turned out as positive as the CIA mission it defines.

What Affleck says that he hoped to present — and what he liked about Terrio’s script in the first place — is a film that avoids lecturing moviegoers.

“It was clearly written by somebody who had similar taste to mine, which errs on the side away from telling the audience what to think, and allows it to make its own determinations and insights,” Affleck tells the Los Angeles Times.

As for his career rejuvenation, he keeps it simple. “I don’t know what this is, but I like it.”

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Affleck sails with Argo

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